The Steyne Hotel at Manly? You and me, babe. We know it well. On a good day, it is the centre of fun on the "Insular Peninsula", the grand old lady of Sydney pubs that lies right by the Corso.

But the joint also has history, and a serious history at that.

For back in 1861, see, when you and I were just the glint of the glint of the glint in our great grand-daddies' eyes, they used to go there, too, albeit for an entirely different purpose.

Can't you see them there, just reflected in the Steyne's smoky glass? They're in nothing less than the NSW Volunteer Rifles, and every Sunday morning - dressed in whatever military finery they can muster before they muster, together with rifles with long bayonets - they are doing their drills, even as the glorious waves of Manly pound in ...

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"Present ... arms!"

"Shoulder arms ... !"

"Right face ... !"

"Quick march!"

Who are they preparing for battle against?

Why, those perfidious Victorians, of course! Now that the American Civil War has begun, we New South Welshmen stand four-square with the government of Abraham Lincoln. But not those Vics.

Our great fear is that they will line up with the slave-holders of the American South, and if that is the case, they may even choose to invade us!

No, really. Victoria is awash with Americans - wretched republicans, disloyal to Queen Victoria - who have gone there for the gold rushes, and it is known that many of them are from the South.

No, we don't know when, exactly, they will invade, nor how, just that it is a possibility, and that we must be ready for them.

So keep going!

"Present ... arms!"

"Shoulder arms ... !"

"Right face ... !"

"Quick march!"

Look how the ladies admire us, the men envy us, the children look up to us!

But say, I am hungry, and thirsty. What about you? You, too? Good. Time for lunch.

And so it goes, for week after week, month after month. The mighty Sunday morning drill is followed by a lovely lunch in the Steyne, all within earshot of the waves hitting Manly Beach.

Such good times.

And even better because, mercifully, the Victorians chickened out in the end, and were never willing to face our guns. I think we would have whupped 'em!

With thanks to Manly to Palm Beach: Pictorial Memories by Alan Sharpe, and Manly: Pictorial History by Virginia Macleod (both published by Kingsclear Books), and to reader Earl Thompson.